Mobility

Toshiba has a long and close relationship with the railway industry.The 1st steam locomotives were invented in the United kingdom and imported to Japan 150 years ago at the end of the EDO period. Almost at the same time, Hisashige Tanaka founder of TOSHIBA known as the "Thomas Edison of the Japan" was contributing to the rise of Japanese industry. Since then, the railway is the one of the key business domains of the Toshiba group and continuing to support a wide variety of clients within the railway industry.
At TDX, we provide digital transformation initiatives that combine the latest digital technologies with the accumulated Railway domain knowledge of the Toshiba Group. Our business aim is to contribute to the improvement of the management of railway companies.
For our 1st step, we are focusing on train planning which is the upstream process in railway operations, the timetable being the symbolic output of train planning process.
We will support railway companies based on our flexible simulation and data analytic capabilities within train planning.

Our initial focus market is the Railway operation in overseas countries, recently we started our project with train operating companies in United Kingdom.
In the United Kingdom, British Rail was privatized in 1993. Now the railway is operating with a scheme of separating infrastructure and train operations. This means infrastructure like signalling and tracks is managed by one government owned company and more than 20 private railway companies which were selected as per a franchise bidding process provide train services on the railway infrastructure.
In addition to the Franchise scheme, freight train operators and other type of train service operators like open access operators provide train services in limited sections but are also running train services on same tracks as the franchised operators. This is increasing the complexity of the UK railway network.
In recent years, the number of train cancellations and major delay incidents is increasing, whilst the nationwide clients expectations for punctual railway is very high. Furthermore each train operating companies is liable for penalties to the government depending on their operating performance, this is directly affects company management.
Based on Toshiba's original Railway Digital Technologies, we started a market survey and conducted a feasibility study in the UK and finally agreed to provide a consulting service from 2019.

Train planning and scheduling operations still rely on the experience and knowledge of skilled employees and manual work. The complexity of the railway industry is constantly increasing, train operating companies are seeking new technologies and approaches in order to keep growing under these business circumstances. This is a challenge common for all train operating companies in UK.
In order to fully understand the clients challenges and to be able to propose an effective solution to these challenges, we have both Digital Technology engineers and railway consultant members who formerly worked for train operating companies or Network Rail. This is one of the strong points of our consulting services.
Recently the concept of "Mobility as a Service" is gradually materialized and modality of transportation is transforming. Our Digital Technology has potential in making contribution to other transportation methods like Buses, Logistics, Airlines and Shipping.
Our initial business focus is with train operating companies in the UK but we are aiming to go beyond and contribute to the more broader world within different mobility industries.